06.29.08
Thing 10 Stretch – OER Commons
I took a few minutes to browse through some of the offerings available at the OER Commons website, and this resource excited me as much as Discovery’s United Streaming site when I first discovered it. At OER, anyone can share coursework, learning modules, teaching resources, blogs and wikis, articles, and other kinds of documents with anyone who is interested: teachers, students, self-learners, etc. Topics range from global rainfall to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and tools are available from the primary through the post-secondary level.
I found an applicable resource offered through The Library of Congress that provided a significant amount of information about the Age of Exploration, Christopher Columbus, Native Americans, etc. In my grade level we use a social studies curriculum based around Joy Hakim’s A History of Us textbooks, and we are constantly looking for primary sources and differing viewpoints with which to supplement our social studies teaching. My favorite thing about this “exhibit,” as it was called, was that it included images from several Library of Congress divisions, including the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and the Geography and Map Division.
Through the OER website, you can review and comment others’ contributions, create your own portfolio of resources to share with the OER community, save items to use repeatedly, and subscribe to a specific topic or grade level’s contributions (for example, I could subscribe to the list of resources for the Primary grade level and receive each new contribution in my Google Reader account.)
